


i will kiss the rope that hangs me

by spiekiel



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Martyrs, Multi, Soulmarks, Soulmates, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 17:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5299247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiekiel/pseuds/spiekiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaby usually ends up sleeping in the middle, but there’s never a moment when Illya’s hands aren’t on both of them, one arm under her waist so he can grab a fistful of Napoleon’s shirt, his elbow bent awkwardly over her head so that his fingers can knot in Napoleon's hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will kiss the rope that hangs me

_first_ :

 

Napoleon spends a lot of time when he’s young trying to make his stamp _fit_. 

 

Most people - at least those who _have_ them - can tell you what their stamp means, why it’s there, why it’s going to help lead them to the one person on earth they’re made for.Napoleon’s got a stylized crimson cross on his right butt cheek, and he can’t for the life of him figure out what it’s meant to tell him.

 

Some musty old book in a library that he’s not supposed to be in tells him that it’s a martyr’s cross, but that doesn’t make any sense, so he breaks into a lot of well-respected but poorly-guarded museums and steals a lot of old crosses that he doesn’t really have any taste for, hoping that some rent-a-cop will come running around the corner with a red cross stamped on his forehead.

 

Needless to say, it doesn’t happen.And then he’s off to jail and off to the CIA and the least of his problems is some theoretical, distant soulmate, who is probably, considering Napoleon’s luck, a priest.

 

 _second_ :

 

Gaby’s father tells her that her mark means there are angels watching over her.

 

Gaby doesn’t think there are any angels in East Berlin, but she’s not about to tell her father that, not now, not under cover of darkness, not with him getting ready to ship out for the United States.She thinks that he’s just trying to make her feel better about being left alone, but she’s not going to say that, either.

 

No one ever really sees her mark - _mark_ , even though a lot of people on the west side, the American side, are starting to call them _stamps_ , because Gaby doesn’t like to think of them as something someone _did_ to her, she likes to think they’re a natural phenomenon, like rain and sun and love.No one sees it, because it’s high on the inside of her thigh, and she never gets to wear dresses, anyways.

 

She knows from an early age, eight and watching the American car with her father drive off into a gloomy night, that she’ll never find her soulmate until they’re already too close, it’s too late.

 

 _third_ :

 

Illya is grateful for the KGB.

 

There is no way to hide his mark, not here, not in a medical exam room with twelve other men, stripped to their underclothes, waiting to be poked and prodded and stabbed.There is no way to hide the cross on his back like the Christians hide their shrines, underground, in the basement, beneath the floorboards.

 

It comes his turn.The doctor looking him over clucks his tongue when he sees it, but he says, _this is your mark_ , and Illya says ashamedly, _yes_ , and the doctor says _, such a shame that the universe can tie such loyal Soviets to unworthy swine._ And Illya hates it, feels his spine tense to the point of cracking, feels red rage in defense of someone that he has never met, will never meet, but he says, _yes_.  

 

The KGB sees that Illya can run faster and hit harder and get up over and over again, more than anyone else in their recruit class, so they overlook the mark on his back, the one that they would burn off of any other person in Russia, and for that Illya is grateful.

 

 _fourth_ :

 

Most of the women that Napoleon takes to bed laugh when they see it.

 

He doesn’t blame them for it, and at this point in his life he usually just chooses to laugh with them, because it can either throw a wrench in the whole thing or it can make her even more comfortable, like she’s seen some vulnerable, imperfect part of him.  

 

Some people hide their stamps, like they’re something sacred that only their _soulmate_ should see, but in his line of work, that’s not something that he can afford to do, and anyways, it only takes a dozen or so times before he stops feeling nauseous when the _wrong_ people touch it.

 

 _fifth_ :

 

Gaby doesn’t tell him right away.

 

She sees Illya’s mark as soon as his shirt comes off, gets to run her fingers over it and feel the swoop in her abdomen, the doubletime kick of her heart, something that she’s never felt with anyone else, and she thinks maybe she’s known since the second she laid eyes on him that he was hers, but this makes it a certainty.

 

Maybe he feels it, too, when she touches him, but she waits for him to find her mark on his own.

 

Laid out on top of the silk comforter in a hotel in Fiji, his lips on the inside of her ankle, sucking kisses into her skin, excruciatingly slow, up to the bend of her knee, and further still, his head underneath her dress, her skirts bunched in his hands, her fingers sunk in his hair - 

 

It’s quiet, just a punched inhalation, and she wishes she could see his face, but she can feel the rumble of his voice, warm against her, where they match.

 

 _sixth_ :

 

There’s something missing.

 

Neither of them say anything about it, but they lay in bed together at night and there’s an emptiness in the room, like someone left the window open and let in cold air, like they have too much on their minds to sleep but there’s _nothing_ , she was just fucked within an inch of her life, she should be _tired_ - 

 

Illya’s exhausted, she can feel the ache in his bones, she can feel the bruises where he fell from a two-storey roof early yesterday morning, he can probably feel the tingling between her legs, the gash in her foot where she stepped on glass trying to get to him in time to catch him.

 

But they can both feel this, too - a bullet hole in their left shoulder, a fractured bone in their right knee, and all of these things belong to someone, all of them belong to all of them - 

 

 _seventh_ :

 

“Neither of us are martyrs,” Napoleon says.“It’s a martyr’s cross, you know.”

 

Gaby, who was probably not the first to figure it out even though she was the first to do anything about it, sips her tea and eats a cucumber sandwich in one bite and hums in agreement.“No, we aren’t particularly, are we?” she agrees.“But he is, and we’re his, so we wear the mark.”

 

Napoleon doesn’t look terribly pleased by the idea, impeccable in thousand-dollar tweed and alligator leather brogues with retractable knives in the toes, unaware of five Soviet bugs that she and Illya have cooperatively spirited away on his person, perfect to the letter except for the lopsided scowl on his mouth.

 

“Buck up,” she says, finishing her tea and reaching across the table for his.“You own him, too, you know, and me.But I also own you, and him.”It’s not an overly coherent statement of faith, she can admit.“It’s not like we weren’t already all tangled together, anyways.”

 

Napoleon licks his lips.“What do you imagine he’ll die for?”

 

It makes her sick to think it, to think of blood that they won’t be able to clean up, air that they won’t be able to force back into Illya’s lungs.“For us, probably.”

 

 _eighth_ :

 

“I will hang for this,” Illya says.“This is - a _capital_ crime.Wanting another man.Loving another man.”

 

Gaby slides into his lap, winds her arms around his neck and presses a kiss to his cheek.“If they want to hang you, they will have to go through us, first.”Her, and Napoleon, the latter sitting outside the bedroom, on an uncomfortable-looking ottoman, not sinking into them yet but not leaving, either.  

 

Illya could fight his way through both of them, but he doesn’t say that.Doesn’t say that he could throw Gaby out the window without standing up, could knock Napoleon out with the lamp on the bedside table.Because he will hang for them, but he can’t think of anything he would rather die for, but them - his _soulmates_.  

 

“Come here,” he says, over Gaby’s shoulder.

 

Napoleon looks as raw and unsure of himself as he did in that horrible chair, so many months ago, and Illya never wants to see that expression on his face again, so he grabs him by the tie as soon as he’s within reach and pulls him down, kisses him.

 

 _ninth_ :

 

They book one hotel room from then on.

 

Gaby usually ends up sleeping in the middle, but there’s never a moment when Illya’s hands aren’t on both of them, one arm under her waist so he can grab a fistful of Napoleon’s shirt, his elbow bent awkwardly over her head so that his fingers can knot in Napoleon's hair.

 

It shouldn’t work - three.But hours ago she was rocking her hips with Napoleon buried inside her, biting Illya’s shoulder while he laved kisses into Napoleon’s neck, and Illya spent long minutes afterwards, wrung out and boneless, sucking easy bruises into their marks, murmuring, _mine_.  

 


End file.
